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Topic Review (Newest First)

01-16-2005 04:50 PM

DEERHAAWK

The Hogan Decission - Some Highlights

Good Afternoon,
Recently I participated in a Post dealing with the Coho Salmon Listing as Endangered Species. In my research over the last few days, this is some of the information that I came up with;

*A group of property rights advocates chalanged NOAA-F ( National Oceanic and Atmospheric Addministrations National Marine Fisheries Service ) 1998 ESA ( Endangered Species Act ) listing of Wild Oregon Costal Coho Salmon as threatend.
*There was a problem with how NOAA-F listed the Costal Coho by including some Hatchery fish in a report, then removing them when they decided to list them ( Wild Coho ) as threatend.
*The Plaintiffs said that NOAA-F's decision to exclude the Hatchery Fish was "arbitray, capricious and unlawfull"
*In fact, NOAA-F used the same ambiguous references of Wild and Hatchery fish in other Salmon ESU ( Evolutionary Significant Unit ) listings.
*After reviewing NOAA-F's submitted record which layed out their ( NOAA-F's ) reasons for listing the Coho as threatend, Judge Hogan concured and sided with the Plaintiffs.
*By Nov. of 2001, 24 Salmon and Steelhead "Delisting" petitions had been filed
*An appeal was mounted by a group of concerened Enviromentalists, but was struck down by the 9th Circut Court on Feb 24, 04.
*So, unless NOAA-F changed it's policies concerning the listing of Wild Coho and other threatend species, 26 other listed fish could be in trouble of being delisted.
*When NOAA-F was directed to "Consider the best scientific data in any further listings of the Oregon Costal Coho", they put together a 5 point plan that actually increased the role of hatchery fish.
*NOAA-F appointed a Salmon Recovery Science Review Panel of 6 fisheries biologists to study this, but their recomendations were never seen in NOAA-F's final report.
*They ( The Panel ) were told to remove their recomendations from the report or it ( The Report ) would be shelved.
*The recomendations did however show up in the March 04 issue of Science, that included a public condemnation of NOAA-F's response to the Hogan decission.
*The Biologists concluded that including Hatchery fish that were included in ESU's could have "devastating consequences" and "open the legal door" to fish stocks maintained by hatcheries.

In an E-mail I recieved yesterday from Robert Behnke, Professor Emeritus at Colorado State University on this subject, he states;
"Judge Hogan did not rule that Wild and Hatchery Salmon were identical. Hatchery and Wild Salmon were lumped into a single ESU by NOAA-F. Judge Hogan ruled that an ESU cannot be sub-divided. This allowed NOAA-F to revise this Coho ESU to exclude Hatchery fish"
But they have not!

There are many people on both sides of this issue, each with his or her own take and outcome. But the fish are a part of the Whole, the Overall complete picture. The second we start thinking that our own intrests are "The right and only way to go" is the second that this Whole goes belly-up.
I side with the fish, but I am also looking at the big picture.
There is now alot of lost ground that needs to be regained.

I went to alot of resources for this information including but not limited to articles by Robert Behnke, Christopher Camuto and Elizabeth Dubovsky of Trout Unlimited, The Northwest Power and Conservation Council and Jeff Curtis of Open Spaces Quarterly.

Please become involved, Help restore the Salmon and other fishes to their rightfull places....They were here long before us, and need to be here long after. There is a wealth of information on this particular subject, you need only to enter the topic in a search engine of your choice.